STRATHMERE — In this small seashore community, the ocean and bay stand just a few blocks from each other. According to residents, the ocean stayed put but the bay crept all the way up to the dunes.

At the Deauville Inn, a restaurant on the bay where in the summer boaters pull right up to the dock and walk up for outside dining and drinks, its docks were blown away. The storm uprooted the restaurant's deck and destroyed its outside bar.

Bill Walters of Walters Bros. Marine Construction came to survey the damage at the restaurant Wednesday afternoon.

As he looked out to where only piling stood where docks has once been, he said the repairs would cost half a million dollars to fix.

Tom Scranton, a volunteer firefighter in the Upper Township community, said "the people on the bay just got killed."

Scranton was working with fellow Strathmere resident Scott Buehler to clean up the town, moving a commercial ice machine that had floated away doing the storm.

The first floor apartment of Buehler's home was flooded during the storm.

Water squished under your feet as you stepped on the living room carpet. The apartment smelled like salt water.

"You know when the water is over the toilet, it's deep," Buehler said.

Out on the bay, docks were buckled and destroyed, having succumbed to the power of the storm.

"There's somebody's dock," Buehler said as he pointed across the bay. "Pretty messed up, huh?"